PA NOW PAC Primary Election Endorsements

Pennsylvania NOW PAC Endorsements

Primary Election Day is Tuesday, May 17, 2011. The following recommendations by the state NOW Political Action Committee  (PA NOW PAC) are presented here for your information. These endorsements are current as of April 26.

 

The Pennsylvania NOW PAC makes endorsements for statewide and local races. At the state level, there is one opening for Justice on the PA Superior Court and one openings for  Justice on the PA Commonwealth Court. At the County level, all County Commissioners or County Executive (Allegheny County) plus all  Row Offices are up for election. In addition, some counties have openings for the county-level Court of Common Pleas. At the local and district level, people are running for District Court Justice, Borough and City Councils, Township Supervisors, and Mayors.

The PA NOW PAC has two levels of approval for candidates. "Endorsement" is the highest level of endorsement and is given only to those candidates who support all of our issues and will take a leadership position on those issues if elected. "Support" is given to those candidates who are good on most of our issues but have a problem with one or two and we believe that these candidates are significantly better than their opposition. As of April 26, all listed candidates have received full endorsement.

Statewide

Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court  (note: you can only vote for one person in this race)

   Kathryn Boockvar (D) http://www.boockvar.com

        Barbara Behrend Ernsberger (D) http://www.ernsbergerforjudge.com
 

Allegheny County

Controller

Valerie McDonald Roberts (D) http://allieswithvalerie.com

County Executive

Rich Fitzgerald (D) http://www.voterichfitzgerald.com

Pittsburgh City Council, District 9

       Phyllis Copeland-Mitchell (D)  http://mitchell4citycouncil.org

Wilkinsburg Borough Council, 1st Ward

Paige Trice (D)

Wilkinsburg Borough Council, 2nd Ward

       Beverly McCoy (D)

Bucks County

Commissioners (vote for two)

Det Ansinn (D) http://www.bucksvictory.com

Diane Marseglia (D) http://www.bucksvictory.com

Dauphin County

Clerk of Courts

Shamaine Daniels (D) http://www.shamainedaniels.com or http://espanol.shamainedaniels.com

 Register of Wills and Clerk of the Orphans’ Court

Rogette Harris (D) www.voterogette.com

Lancaster County

Manheim Township Commissioner

Doreen Kreiner (D) http://www.kreinerforcommissioner.com

Montgomery County

Clerk of Courts

Ann Thornburg Weiss (D) http://voteweiss.com

Controller

       Diane B. Morgan (D) http://dianemorgancontroller.com

    Recorder of Deeds

Linda M. Hee (D) http://heefordeeds.com

 

The PA NOW PAC needs your help.

In order to put out a voter’s guide and to assist NOW endorsed candidates for statewide and local office, we need funds donated directly to the PA NOW PAC.  If you are interested in electing public officials who support full equality of women, then please consider donating to the PA NOW PAC. Mail your donation to the PA NOW PAC, P.O. Box 8614, Wilkinsburg, PA 15221.  You can also donate online to the PAC via credit card at http://panow.org/PAC_file/PANOWPAC.htm. Thank you!

Giving Thanks

On behalf of Pennsylvania NOW and the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund, we hope you have a bountiful and Happy Thanksgiving.  Enjoy this holiday season with your friends and family and enjoy whatever type of meal you decide to "carve up."

While giving thanks, we also hope you will consider sharing your concerns and thoughts with those who use Social Security to support their families.  Remember that Tuesday, November 30th is National call-in day to or US Senators to not "carve up" Social Security.  I blogged earlier this week about this call-in day.  Information about the action was summarized in the blog entitled "You Can Count on Me! Tell Congress: Don’t Carve Up Social Security."  And talking points about the proposal to cut Social Security by the Fiscal Commission Co-Chairs is located in the blog entitled "Ten Reasons the Social Security Proposal of the Fiscal Commission Co-Chairs Should be DOA." 

We need your voice to be heard this Thanksgiving! Click here to take the Strengthen Social Security Coalition's “Count on Me” pledge to add your voice on Tuesday, November 30 and TELL CONGRESS – DON’T CUT OUR SOCIAL SECURITY! Once you sign up, you will receive a reminder to call in.

Finally, do you do your holiday shopping on the day after Thanksgiving? This year, you can help Pennsylvania NOW turn "Black Friday" golden -- with a donation to support our work to stop Congress from cutting Social Security benefits.  If you prefer to make a tax-deductible contribution, you can donate here to help make for a golden "Black Friday" for the PA NOW Education Fund as well as for yourself.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!

In sisterhood,

Joanne Tosti-Vasey
President
Pennsylvania NOW, Inc. and Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund
P.O. Box 68
Bellefonte, PA 16823

P.S.  If you prefer to write a check to make your golden "Black Friday" donation to either PA NOW or the PA NOW Ed Fund, just write out the check to whichever organization you want to donate to and mail the check to the above address.  Remember, you get a tax deduction by donating to the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund and you get direct funding for our advocacy work, but no tax deduction, when you donate to Pennsylvania NOW, Inc.

Fall Pennsylvania NOW Times and Voters' Guide

The Pennsylvania NOW Times Fall issue is now available online.  The newsletter includes:

• Our Voters' Guide
• Legislative Updates - what passed and what didn't during the 2009-2010 Pennsylvania General Assembly session.
• Unshackeled - story about Pennsylvania outlawing the shackling of incarcerated pregant women.
• Anti-Abortion Bill Condemned - article about a bill introduced by Senator Don White that would outlaw abortion coverage, even when medically necessary, in the new health care insurance exchanges.
• Police Failure to Investigate Rape - story about what happens when police fail to properly investigate allegations of rape.
• Chapter Exchange

August 8 is my birthday. Please help celebrate!

Tomorrow August 8th is my birthday! Instead of asking for gifts, I’ve created a Birthday Wish where you can share stories, photos, and donate to the cause Pennsylvania NOW, something I really care about. Check it out!

Why I Care About NOW and Women's Equality

I joined NOW in 1979 because I couldn't get my boss to pay me a fair wage (I was paid 59% of what a man that graduated with me was paid). In 1989, NOW helped save my life by intervening in a health insurance dispute that was preventing me from having a bone marrow transplant. I continue to have a passion for equality for all, including for women and children. Current issues like shackling pregnant women in prison or cutting funds for critical women's and children's programs that occured here in Pennsylvania for a second year in a row makes my blood boil. We need funds to help get the word out when these kinds of things are happening. Will you help?

Please help make this a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY for me by making a tax-deductible donation to the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund. Thank you!

OR

If you are not on Facebook or prefer to make the donation by check rather than credit card, you can send your check or credit card donation to us at Pennsylvania NOW, P.O. Box 68, Bellefonte, PA 16823. A pledge form for this purpose is attached at th end of this blog.

If you want to make a tax deductible donation, make the check out to the “Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund.” If you don't need the tax deduction, then you can make the check out to “Pennsylvania NOW, Inc.” Either way helps.

Put "Joanne's Birthday Wish" in the check memo line so that we know that you are helping make my wish come true.

Thanks so much! I'm so lucky to have such awesome friends and fellow activists for equality.

-Joanne Tosti-Vasey, President, Pennsylvania NOW, Inc. and Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund

PA NOW Pledge Form

Online Fundraiser for the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund

I am President of Pennsylvania NOW and the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund. My birthday is on August 8th. The best birthday gift would be additional funds to help with our work for equality, economic justice, civil rights for all, and ending violence against women in Pennsylvania.

To celebrate, I am doing an online fundraiser for the Education Fund.

Why is this important to me?  It's both personal and political.

Why I Care About This Cause


I joined NOW in 1979 because I couldn't get my boss to pay me a fair wage (I was paid 59% of what a man that graduated with me was paid).

In 1989, NOW helped save my life by intervening in a health insurance dispute that was preventing me from having a bone marrow transplant.

I continue to have a passion for equality for all, including for women and children. Current issues like shackling pregnant women in prison or cutting funds for critical women's and children's programs that occurred here in Pennsylvania for a second year in a row makes my blood boil.

We need funds to help get the word out when these kinds of things are happening.

Will You Help?

So please check out my Birthday Wish at http://birthdays.causes.com/wishes/2934, spread the word, and make a donation if you can.

OR, if you prefer to make the donation by check rather than credit card, you can email your check to us at Pennsylvania NOW, P.O. Box 68, Bellefonte, PA 16823.

For a tax deduction, make the check out to the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund. If you don't need the tax deduction, then you can make the check out to Pennsylvania NOW, Inc. Either way helps.

Put "Joanne's Birthday Wish" in the memo line so that we know that you are helping make my wish come true. 


Thanks so much! I'm so lucky to have such awesome friends and fellow activists for equality.

Joanne Tosti-Vasey

Funds Needed for Our Work for Equality

The Primary Election of 2010 has finished with several great wins – Joe Sestak for US Senate; Lois Herr, Bryan Lentz, and Manan Trivedi for Congress; Tina Davis and Babette Josephs for the PA House of Representative; and Ruth Damsker for State Senate. We will continue working for these candidates as well as additional ones across the state with PAC endorsements. We are now in the state budgetary month in the General Assembly. Which means that we must monitor and advocate on two fronts – first to maintain funding for critical women’s and children’s programs in the budget and second to continue advocating for passage of bills to improve the status of women in PA; bills such as the prohibition on shackling pregnant women and bills to add gender identity, sexual orientation, and marital and familial status protections to our state’s anti-discrimination law

All of these efforts require funds to pay for our advocacy. Your financial support is vital to keeping the office open and to help us get the word out for equality.

There are three entities that you can join/donate to NOW in Pennsylvania:

1. Join and/or Donate to Pennsylvania NOW, Inc. This is the advocacy arm of NOW. It is also where you can become a member of NOW and join in local, state and national actions for women’s equality in your community, in PA, and across the US. To join online, go to http://panow.org/pages/members.htm. To make an on-line non-tax deductible contribution Pennsylvania NOW, go to http://panow.org/contribution.htm.

2. Donate to the PA NOW PAC. This is the political action committee arm of NOW that reviews and endorses candidates for local and state office. We also make recommendations to the National NOW PAC for endorsements in federal races. Our Voters’ Guide as well as assistance to endorsed candidates comes from this fund. To make an on-line non-tax deductible contribution to the PA NOW PAC, go to http://panow.org/PAC_file/PANOWPAC.htm.

3. Donate to the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund. All contributions to the Education Fund are used to educate the public about issues important to women and to promote women's equality. To make an on-line tax-deductible contribution to the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund, go to http://panow.org/edfund.htm.

If you prefer to donate by check, email panow@panow.org and request a pledge form.  Put "Need NOW pledge form" in subject line.  If you prefer calling in your credit card donation, call us at 814-280-8571.

Thank you for your support.

Women thrown under the bus

This afternoon at 4 pm, Bart Stupak announced that he had made a deal with President Obama to deny women access to reporductve health care abortion services through an Executive Order that will be signed when Obama signs the health insurance (not health care) reform bill.  Here's National NOW's President's statement on this decision by mostly white men to control the lives, bodies, and health of women.

President Obama Breaks Faith with Women

Statement of NOW President Terry O'Neill
March 21, 2010


The National Organization for Women is incensed that President Barack Obama agreed today to issue an executive order designed to appease a handful of anti-choice Democrats who have held up health care reform in an effort to restrict women's access to abortion. Through this order, the president has announced he will lend the weight of his office and the entire executive branch to the anti-abortion measures included in the Senate bill, which the House is now prepared to pass.

President Obama campaigned as a pro-choice president, but his actions today suggest that his commitment to reproductive health care is shaky at best. Contrary to language in the draft of the executive order and repeated assertions in the news, the Hyde Amendment is not settled law -- it is an illegitimate tack-on to an annual must-pass appropriations bill. NOW has a longstanding objection to Hyde and, in fact, was looking forward to working with this president and Congress to bring an end to these restrictions. We see now that we have our work cut out for us far beyond what we ever anticipated. The message we have received today is that it is acceptable to negotiate health care on the backs of women, and we couldn't disagree more.

We need to give Bart Stupak and Joe Pitts their pink slips.  They need to be fired for crafting the Stupak-Pitts amendment.  This is the amendment that was in the House version of the bill that that resulted in today's Executive Order announcement in order to get the anti-choice Representatives to vote for the bill.  With this so-called compromise, women have now been thrown under the bus and into the back alleys.

You can help do that.  The National NOW PAC has endorsed Connie Saltonstall against Bart Stupak in his  primary in Michigan because of his anti-choice zealotry. The NOW PAC also endorsed Lois Herr against Joe Pitts here in Pennsylvania for similar reasons. You can donate to their campaigns at http://actblue.com/page/feminist  (Saltonstall) and at http://actblue.com/page/elect-herr-NOW (Herr).

Lois Herr (PA-16)	$

Connie Saltonstall (MI-01)	$